


Impressions

by Whreflections



Series: Necromancer Stiles verse [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Animal Death, Consensual Underage Sex, Full Shift Werewolves, M/M, Mage Chris Argent, Mage Stiles Stilinski, Necromancer Stiles Stilinski, Necromancy, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Underage Sex, but it will happen so I'm tagging the endgame in advance so no one is surprised, the stetopher doesn't occur in this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 15:00:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20360458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: When he was 16, Peter Hale fell in love with a hunter he was certain was his mate.  Before Chris left him, he thought he knew how their story would end- a happier marriage than his parents, with a husband who could shape the world around him like a sculptor.He hadn't planned to be Chris' affair, but once he was, he didn't expect there would ever be much else for him.He never expected to fall in love again-but then, he'd never honestly expected he'd be coming back from the dead, either.





	Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> ...so the next thing I posted was supposed to be escort!Chris (in progress lol) or the start of something new involving horses and (pseudo)homewreckers (also in progress). This is neither of those things lmao
> 
> I decided pretty soon after writing Bone Dragons that I enjoyed the verse too much to leave it alone, that it would end in stetopher, and that I wanted to extend it past a retelling of 3B. This portion of the story won't reach to 3B, but the end will start to brush the edges of the beginning of it. This part is all Peter POV, and it'll give some insights into this Peter's past, as well as how things are developing with Stiles...and where that leaves him and Chris. 
> 
> One quick...bonus tag/warning- Peter loves Stiles; he really does. He also still very much loves Chris, and in his mind, that's his mate. That's been the case since he was a teenager, so you're going to see that even though he's with Stiles (and that relationship is developing), and even though he's been hurt by Chris, he still thinks of Chris that way, and that isn't going to change. I definitely understand that's something that might be not to your tastes if you're here mostly for the steter, so I just wanted to put that out there in advance. 
> 
> ...even though this chapter took me longer than expected, I really am having fun with this verse and I hope you guys enjoy <3

For all the time Peter had spent in Stiles room, so little of it had been in the light of day. 

The change was almost as jarring as the new sensation of Stiles underneath him, the weakness from last night faded almost entirely from him while he slept. He had kissed Peter like he’d been dying to do it, like he’d die if he didn’t. Without his outright eagerness, Peter might have taken the next step a little more slowly. With it, he was willing to bend. They had been walking toward this point for ages, dancing around it and dancing back. 

The tray from breakfast was on the floor; the sunlight off the silverware glinted sharp for a moment in his eyes as Peter moved further up on the bed. Stiles heart was beating so fast, though his own wasn’t too far behind it. They had been winding their way toward this since June; it was no wonder the tension in his spine felt like a wire ready to snap. It was no wonder that Stiles’ kisses were so hungry. Some of it was age and inexperience; the rest was pent up desire that could only come from waiting, and waiting. The untested certainty of denial, suddenly tested and found inaccurate.

Peter didn’t mind. The eagerness was endearing, and Stiles was a quick study. He had known that on the lacrosse field, and knew it better after months as his teacher. This was different, but already Stiles was learning. Their first kiss had been choppy with the blunted press of his teeth, but Peter had steadied him and evened it out, and now, already, Stiles was tempering himself. He was no less eager, the nails digging into Peter's shoulders spoke to that, but he wasn’t going after Peter’s mouth like it would vanish if he didn’t. When he tugged Peter’s lip between his teeth to worry it, then, there was more care to it, more focus. His teeth clenched just before he sucked, and Peter moaned into him, shifting closer like he was drawn toward the pressure down the length of his body. His fingers clenched in the sheets, the grind of his hips slow and firm. They had stripped down to their boxers; he could feel Stiles’ cock twitching against his, the wet patch clinging to the head rubbing damp against Peter’s belly as they moved. It wasn’t quite a rhythm. Stiles squirmed in every direction, rising up and pressing down and pulling at him, while Peter moved against him with even rolls of his hips and the expansion of his chest with each breath, measured and inexorable.

If he hadn’t been a wolf, when Stiles let his lip go he was sure it would have been swollen; it might even have bled. Peter licked it and tasted only Stiles, and went back for another kiss. His lungs burned, his skin along with them. He had had no shortage of sex, after Chris (and alongside Chris, those later years), but he hadn’t kissed anyone but Chris the way he was kissing Stiles now—hot, and deep, and constant. There was a high to this particular pursuit of intimacy, a deep resonance with the wolf in his chest that kept his blood burning. The wolf wanted to taste Stiles again, and again, to drink him down and rub against him until he was out of breath and limp and covered in Peter’s scent. The wolf wanted to see his skin pink from Peter’s stubble, his lips swollen, his neck bruised. Bitten.

The wolf wanted more than he could allow himself to take; he always did. It was ravenous, always; he had had to learn how much to let it take, and when to deny himself. He had never been very good at self-denial. Talia had accused him of decadence to the point of arrogance, before, and she wasn’t wrong. He had never seen much point in denying himself—not when so much that he’d wanted had been denied to him already by forces outside of his control.

Still, he had learned limits, hard though they may be to reach. He could leave Stiles disheveled and covered in his scent; he could stake his claim without breaking skin, and changing everything.

It didn’t hurt to let his fangs drop, though, not if he was careful. He gave in to the itch and let them, a low growl simmering in his chest as he pulled away from the drugging, constant kisses to skim his mouth along the underside of Stiles’ jaw. His skin was so soft, there; so fragile. Peter could feel the give of it under the blunt pressure of his sharp canines, feel the whine that rose from his boy’s throat as a vibration that rattled into Peter’s bones, down to his cock.

“_Shit_, Peter; oh my God—“ Stiles was breathless, the drag of his nails so firm up the back of Peter’s spine and onto his nape that Peter knew they were opening skin in a furrow that would stitch together in their wake. He wondered if Stiles knew, if it was intentional to cut him open because he could. Possession could be made safe by impermanence. No one would have to see what they did, here; not if Stiles didn’t want them to.

Then again, they would smell so thoroughly of each other, after this, that there would be no keeping the wolves from knowing—and Stiles couldn’t exactly be averse to claiming him, not with the lengths he’d gone to to show himself off to Chris.

Still, old habits and curiosities were hard to shake, too ingrained. As a boy, he hadn’t questioned enough. Chris was his mate; he had known it with such a deep, unshakeable conviction that it made him careless. Chris had heard him say it, had been willing to bite his throat purple in the middle of fucking in the back of his car, and Peter had made the mistake of thinking it had meant the same thing to both of them. He had been naïve enough to assume that Chris would have claimed him, if his handiwork would hold.

Until it was too late, he hadn’t realized Chris intended to be the only audience to the claim he held, any evidence of the tie that should have bound them together fading out as quickly as the marks of his fingers left Peter’s thighs. The excitement of being a secret had its own impermanence. 

Peter’s teeth pressed closer against the juncture of Stiles’ shoulder, close enough to dent the skin, close enough to feel his hips buck. His heart hammered so hard that Peter could feel it beating where their chests pressed together, racing out of control.

Drawing back, he lapped at the slightly reddened skin he’d left, his breath heavy. For a moment he kept his eyes nearly closed, centering himself. He’d had to draw on the core of his alpha power last night to help Stiles rejuvenate; in doing that, he’d brought it closer to the surface that he’d allowed it to be since he woke up. He could feel the heat of it, like a burning coal behind his ribs, but it would have to be shoved deeper. Stiles didn’t smell like fear, and Peter didn’t want him to.

He kissed Stiles throat, far softer, his teeth human again. The dents he’d left were barely visible, but he soothed them with his tongue even so. When Stiles moaned at the first stroke, he did it again. 

“I, ah— _fuck_—“ Stiles muttered. His fingers kneaded at the back of Peter’s neck, both tugging and not pulling him away. His eyes when Peter looked up at him were blown wide, the barest rim of honey brown catching in the morning sun. “I have—if you wanted—not that you need condoms because you can’t carry anything—or that you would have anything, but I have lube in the—“

When he let go to gesture back to the shelves behind his bed, Peter caught his hand, and pinned it to the pillow.

“We’re not going to need lube right now,” he said, chased almost instantly with a huff of laughter when Stiles opened his mouth to protest. “That doesn’t mean we’re stopping, but I’m not fucking you today.” 

“Not even if I ask nicely?”

“I’m not sure you know how—but no, we’ll work up to it.” Peter’s hips rolled against him, savoring the drag and Stiles’ gasp, the little hitches in his heart rate like it was tripping over itself. Other considerations aside, Stiles was going to come in about 2 seconds; his father would be home within the hour. When Peter fucked him for the first time, he didn’t want time constraints. 

Stiles arched into him, hands dragging down his spine to slip just past the waist of his boxers, gripping hard at his hips. “Not today, but you want to.”

“You know that isn’t even a question; anyone who looks at you would want to fuck you.”

“Yeah, I don’t know—_Jesus_—“ Stiles sucked in a sharp breath, his stomach contracting away from the skim of Peter’s fingers over his skin, even as his hips bucked. “—I’ve never been attractive to gay men. Or most girls.”

“Whoever told you that wasn’t a gay man.” Peter pushed their underwear down just enough for their cocks to press together, Stiles’ cut and thinner, almost the same length but a contrast against the uncut girth of his own. His assumption hadn’t been wrong—lube was never unwelcome, but Stiles was leaking so freely they didn’t need it. It was easy to slick both of their cocks with it, combining with the precome beading at the head of his own cock as he nudged his foreskin back. It was easy to stroke them both with a single loose hand, most of the friction coming from the press of their cocks against each other, the weight of their bodies. 

Stiles made a strangled sound close to the startled yelp he’d made when Peter had first shoved his hand under his shirt, and he knew his other assumption hadn’t been wrong, either. No one had ever touched him like this. Peter was going to be the first person to make him come; that was a first that couldn’t be undone. Whatever happened with the two of them, Stiles would remember this for the rest of his life.

Stiles was panting, his pretty mouth open and pink, swollen from their kisses. His cheeks were flushed, dark bags under his eyes left over from how hard he’d tasked himself the night before. He was right on the edge, and all the more breathtaking for it. Peter could feel the hum of his magic buzzing in the air around him, twining into and around Peter’s own. He could almost taste the crackle of it on the air, like the weight that pressed down before the clouds broke. The very nature of coming together like this stoked their power like kindling.

There was a reason, after all, that not all sacrifices were made in blood. He and Chris had learned that together. Eventually, when the memory of his last attempt wasn’t so sharp, he’d teach it to Stiles. 

The wolf surged forward, and Peter let it; his eyes flashing blue. Stiles’ breath came so hard and sharp that Peter forced him to pause, dipping his head to bite soft at the corner of his mouth, murmuring there against his skin. “Go on; I know you need it. Don’t fight.”

Before he’d even finished, Stiles was spilling across his fingers and against his cock in hot jolts, a high whine working free from his throat that sounded maddeningly like prey—or like Peter was already breeding him properly. Peter couldn’t help but react to it, his growl deep and rich as he nuzzled into Stiles throat.

Stiles bared his throat so easily, one hand coming up to grip hard at Peter’s hair and hold him in place when he bit down. He was careful, his fangs held back though his gums burned, the pressure just enough that Stiles would feel force in it. His hand flexed in Peter’s hair in response, nails scraping light against his scalp. The scent of his pleasure was overwhelming, and mouthwatering.

“Holy shit,” Stiles panted, still. His grip tightened in Peter’s hair to the point of pain before he turned his head, pressing a kiss to his temple that felt a little clumsy in his eagerness, firm and wet. “I don’t know what I expected but that was—that was different. _Is _different; do you want—“

Peter silenced him with a kiss, deep and filthy. The rumble of his growl fed into it, animal and rough. Stiles stomach was wet with come; the feel of his cock dragging through it when Peter thrust against him was heady. He needed more than Stiles, but he wouldn’t have a problem getting off just like that, with long kisses and Stiles writhing under him like he just couldn’t be still, like he wanted too much.

When their kisses paused Peter stayed close, the noise in his chest fading soft the longer their breath mingled with no move from Stiles to pull away. “I want to come on you. I want to rub it into your skin—and I don’t want you to shower until it’s worn in, until you smell like me more than you already do. “ Their noses brushed, Peter’s slight stubble just catching on the swell of Stiles’ lip with the faintest rasp. The shiver that followed travelled through them both; he wasn’t sure where it had started. “Yes?”

Stiles licked his lips, the tip of his tongue flicking just far enough to tease Peter’s mouth with the barest touch. It took effort not to press forward, and kiss him again. “Yes. Definitely yes, but I want to help.”

“You are,” Peter said, but took Stiles’ hand as he said it. His grip was light, little more than a guide down his chest and between their bodies, backing off once Stiles was close enough to take him in hand. When he did, there was little hesitance, though he could feel Stiles’ curiosity in the movements of his fingers, moving down with a firm, squeezing stroke, back up with a pause for the slip and shift of his foreskin.

Rutting against Stiles’ stomach would have gotten him off quicker, but the gentle and sincere fascination in his touch was well worth the wait. The care he took exposing the head of Peter’s cock was endearing, his own spent cock twitching a bit against his hip when he paused to rub his thumb just underneath, then up, and across, spreading precome. 

Peter’s moan was uninhibited, his eyes flaring bright at the rush of sensation. The glow stayed when Stiles repeated the motion before he shifted his grip lower again, letting Peter thrust into his palm. He nuzzled at Peter with all the fond eagerness of a pup, craning his neck to kiss his cheek.

“Too much? I’ve read a lot about it; I know it’s different for me, I know it might be too sensitive—“

“Not too much. If you kept it up, yes, but a little attention isn’t too much.”

“Just ‘not too much’, or good?” Stiles murmured against his ear. If he hadn’t been able to hear his heart, Peter wouldn’t have known he was nervous. His breath was uneven with exertion, but his voice didn’t shake, and he hadn’t stopped. He was jacking Peter more quickly to try and match the twitching of Peter’s hips, his palm slicked with his own come that had coated the space between them. “I want it to be good.”

“It’s good. Especially—“ Reaching down, Peter guided his hand, his thumb pressing over Stiles’ in a sweep that nudged his foreskin up, and back. Even the slick sound of it made his balls tighten, the quiet after broken by a moan as he guided Stiles to rub just beneath the head of his cock, freshly exposed. He was so sensitive, there, that the pressure made his hips jerk hard, mindless and eager. “Right there.”

“Yeah? You like that?” Stiles didn’t bother to wait for an answer, wetting his thumb and pressing again. The pleasure was so intense it was sharp. He hadn’t been celibate, after the fire—not either time, though he’d tapered off seeking anyone out the more serious the situation with Stiles had become. He’d gotten off, objectively spectacularly a few times, but it hadn’t been like this. 

No one had touched him like this since before the fire. The contrast didn’t just tug at his balls; it made him ache. 

Peter let his fangs drop, his breath hitching as he nodded. His body felt heavy; he didn’t try to hold it up. It was easier to rest more of his weight against Stiles, to feel his thighs spread to bracket his hips even though it was an awkward stretch with his boxers still on. His long legs tangled with Peter’s, tethering him close. 

Stiles tongue stroked hot along the line of his jaw, licking up before he bit down—tentative, by Peter’s standards, but he encouraged it by tilting this throat. It wasn’t even hard to bare it for him—it didn’t make his skin crawl. He wanted Stiles mouth everywhere; he wanted his teeth and his tongue. He wanted him to leave a mark. Peter was far too close to spare much though for why that was, and how long it might have been true. 

“Fuck, look at you,” Stiles said, breathless and reverent. Peter’s skin burned so hot that his breath felt cool. “Your eyes haven’t stopped. Is it—does the wolf come out more because it feels good or is it harder to hold the shift back?”

“Yes,” Peter said, heavy and short. Stiles laughed, head thrown back and eyes bright. He was too tempting; Peter couldn’t help but kiss him. He could feel his back sweating, the air of the room chilly on his shoulders from the cracked window, his chest hot with Stiles pressed right up against him. The heat of the wolf writhing under his skin was familiar, welcome in its intensity. It had been a long time since he felt this particular pressure, the clawing instinctive drive to claim so enmeshed with affection and the urge to be as close to his anchor as he could be that he couldn’t separate any of it out. The wolf wanted Stiles as much as he did. 

“All of the above?” Stiles said. “I mean it doesn’t matter; I’m not scared. They’re just so pretty—“ Stiles paused to kiss the answering growl off Peter’s lips, his hand twisting. When they broke apart, the teasing tilt to his mouth was gone. “I mean it; you look—you’re beautiful. I knew you would be; I thought about this, but I didn’t imagine—I didn’t think I had a chance.”

“Then you weren’t paying attention.” Peter pressed hard against him, his nails slipping out, pricking the sheets. Stiles grip was tight, and close. With each thrust, his cock nudged at soft give of Stiles’ belly, or the groove of his hip. Any moment, and he wouldn’t be able to keep it up. “Stiles—“

“Yeah. Yeah, I want you to; I want everyone to know. Come on—“ His grip tightened, his strokes so fast they were almost rough. The grip he’d had in Peter’s hair shifted down to the nape of his neck, squeezing tight. His cheeks were flushed red—from self-consciousness or arousal Peter wasn’t sure. Either would have been endearing. “Make me smell like you; I should. I’m yours.”

He was close already; it wasn’t the thought that pushed him over the edge. That was, at least, how Peter would have chosen to frame it. It was far too soon for him to trust any reassurance of possession; far too soon to let it matter enough to make him feel dizzy with pleasure. 

After he’d reached between them to rub the mess they’d made into Stiles skin, Stiles caught his hand, drawing it up to his mouth. His tongue darted out quick, flicking between his fingers, though his nose crinkled just as quickly.

“Porn has lied to me; that doesn’t taste anything but weird.”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Peter said, lapping at his own hand. It was half for show, but he didn’t mind the taste. It was strong; it tasted inextricably of the two of them. The wolf preened. 

“No, your opinion doesn’t count; you’re a werewolf and wolves are gross. If I let you you’d probably piss in the yard to warn people off.”

“Who says I haven’t?”

Stiles laugh was infectious, and easy, so light it almost seemed his lungs hadn’t been stretched to near the breaking point the night before. They wrestled in bed until the sheets were a mess, and the sunlight stretched far into the room, squares of light narrowing and reaching for their calves. Peter had intended to get up more quickly, to straighten the kitchen. 

In the end, he got up at the sound of the patrol car, and let Stiles shove his glass and fork into the nightstand. Before he left, he scented at Stiles’ neck though there wasn’t a need, pausing with their cheeks resting against each other. It soothed something deep in his chest that Stiles would let Peter hold him close like that, and make no move to pull away. 

“I’ll see you tonight,” he murmured.

“Yeah.” He could feel Stiles throat work as he swallowed, smell the spike in his nerves. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. I want you to promise me you won’t be that reckless again.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose—“

“Promise me, Stiles.”

“Dad’s coming; you have to go.” 

The hands that shoved at his chest curled in his shirt, too. When Peter pulled away and slipped from the window, the wrinkles from his grip lingered until he was halfway across the yard, smoothing into nothing the further he went. 

\------

On the edge of the tree line, Peter waited until he heard the front door close, and the Sheriff moving through the house. Once he was sure Stiles wasn’t alone, he slipped his phone out of his pocket, unlocking it to look down at the conversation he’d had open the night before.

It would be easiest, relatively speaking, to text him back, though he had no idea what it was he wanted to say. 

_Now we need to talk? Now, after 7 months?_

_You shouldn’t have pushed him. He’s as stubborn as you are; you’re the adult._

_You shouldn’t have left him like that. _

_You don’t have to worry about Stiles; I won’t hurt him. If this ends, he’ll end it. I know what I’m getting into._

_You waited too long. _

Peter tapped his phone against his palm. The words swirled, souping together. There was too much to say; no one statement could carry it—and if he tried, they would keep texting, and he would end up going over to the apartment anyway. The sooner he accepted that, the sooner it’d be done. 

If he was going to see Chris, he had to do it before he thought better of it—and before nightfall. Stiles would need him, then, and Allison would be home. The day was perfectly empty, if he didn’t count Derek. 

If he was going, he needed to shower. The wolf whined and scrabbled in the back of his mind at the thought, though Peter couldn’t pin the source—he smelled, now, like Stiles and sex, and he didn’t want to lose that, equally couldn’t imagine meeting with his mate covered in someone else’s scent. Both hurt, at different pressure points. 

Rather than puzzle out which was worse, he ran, and put off both. 

\------

When Chris had left town, the first time, Peter had been just a month shy of 18—barely older than Stiles was now. They’d been together almost two years. Age hadn’t dimmed it; he could remember the violence of loving Chris, then, before he learned that nothing they’d built was stable enough to withstand the anomaly that they were. The loss had cut so deep it hadn’t felt real—he could lie on his bed and lose himself in a buzzing in his ears like white noise, finding patterns on the popcorn ceiling until his vision blurred. Around the time he went so cross eyed he felt like he might go blind, he’d start to feel utterly unmoored, like a soul with half the strings to his body clipped.

The night that Chris left, Peter’s little brother slipped into his room in the middle of the night with wolfsbane moonshine, pilfered from their aunt who had brought it back from a trip to visit her pack back east. David was 14, and human; he thought Peter hung the moon. Until then, he’d never seen anything but death make him crack. 

Like Peter, he’d had their father’s eyes—he could remember so easily how they’d looked that night, almost grey with the dark, the mason jar held out like an offering as he flopped onto Peter’s bed. A lifetime with wolves had made him just as tactile; he’d shifted over until he could rest his head on Peter’s shoulder while he drank, tucked in close. 

_He’s not worth it; he’s a fucking Argent. I was always worried he would hurt you. I hate him._

He’d been so young; he still said fuck in a whisper. 

If everything between he and Chris had been less than it was, Peter might have been able to say _I hate him, too._ It was, he had felt even then, what he _should_ say. 

Instead, he’d told his brother to get out, and drank alone until he hallucinated, until he’d had enough that he couldn’t hide that he’d downed over a third of the jar. He took the fall for taking it—like much of his behavior in those years, his mother had blamed it on his father’s death. Peter had wanted to tell her, then, that he missed his dad, but it had been three years. He missed him, and he missed someone else more. 

Before Chris, he wouldn’t have thought that was possible. After the fire, he’d discover that he’d known nothing about loss, really. He’d only scratched the surface. 

There were so many conversations left unfinished, or never begun. He had never thanked David for keeping his secret, or for giving a shit when he lost Chris. He’d never told him he was a good brother. 

Since waking up, he’d dreamt more than once about his childhood room in the middle of the night, a jar of moonshine resting on the quilt, his little brother sitting beside him, looking older in the haze of the dream than Peter had ever been able to see him become. They would pass the jar back and forth, largely in silence. Even when the dream was lucid enough for making choices, Peter could rarely think of anything to say. 

The last time he’d seen David, he and his mate were huddled around their daughter, young, devoted parents, shielding her from the smoke even though they knew it wouldn’t matter. She was a wolf like her mother, 9 months old. Even if David could have found a way out of the house, he couldn’t have taken her past the mountain ash, and he wouldn’t leave her. The thought to try probably never crossed his mind.

The baby had stopped breathing long before she caught fire— Peter remembered the sound when the crying stopped. It was a mercy, really, but there was no comfort anyone could give for that, not even to a ghost. 

It was selfish to have wished for it, maybe, but David never had any comfort to offer him, either. Still, Peter had known him so well—awake, he could extrapolate. 

Fresh from the shower, he leaned into the unfinished counter until it bit into his hands, and imagined. If she’d survived, Talia would have forbidden him from going back to Chris, and he’d have done it anyway. David’s advice would have been no less direct.

_He’s a fucking Argent. He hurt you before; he’ll do it again. They always do. Look what happened to Derek. Look what happened to me_. 

For half a second, his memory aligned so closely with his thoughts that Peter could almost hear his whisper—the steam felt like breath on his shoulder. With a growl, he swiped at the mirror, clearing streaks that showed him an empty, unfinished bathroom, his own heaving chest, and the dimming red in his eyes, slowly fading like a dying match. 

\------

There was no preparing himself to see Chris up close—dinner last night had proven that, though he hadn’t needed the proof. It had been hard enough to see him when they faced down his father and the kanima, harder still to half expect him every night after. He had told himself he wasn’t waiting, but his ears had strained for the 4Runner’s engine more than he’d care to admit. Whether he’d wanted Chris to come to him so he could tell him to go or ask him to stay was an unknown. It hadn’t happened; he hadn’t had to decide.

Stiles had happened instead. 

After he knocked, Peter could hear Chris moving around inside. He’d never been inside this apartment, but he could almost have mapped his steps—up, to arm himself beyond what he already carried, then to the peep hole. Back, to consider putting away the gun—back again when he decided against it. Peter didn’t need to see him to flesh out the details of his steps, not for someone he knew better than almost anyone. 

When the door opened, Chris pulled it wide, though he didn’t step back. 

“I didn’t tell you about this place,” Chris said. It wasn’t unfriendly, but it wasn’t entirely a welcome. To the wolf, it didn’t matter—Peter could feel it writhing toward the sound of his voice, ingrained and thoughtless. The instinct to bare his throat to his mate to appease him was so strong that it took going rigid to resist, the muscles in his neck strung tight. He would leave sore; he hadn’t expected any less. 

“You didn’t give me your number, either; you can’t tell me you’re surprised. Do you want to talk in the hallway or can I come in?”

Chris stepped back with a nod, and Peter followed him in. The rush of air held Allison’s scent, too, but Chris’ was overwhelming, the apartment layered with it. It smelled lived in, as it should—it had been months since they moved out and into this place, months since he had come here when they were out and followed the scent to a door he couldn’t go through. 

Aside from the two of them, the air was rich with mingled wolfsbane and gunpowder, a hint of flowers, traces of cooked breakfast and coffee. The domesticity shouldn’t have felt as comforting as it did. He’d never been anywhere domestic with Chris, not really—hiding in each other’s rooms didn’t count. 

“I’m not surprised, but you could have called. Allison—“

“Is in school; she’ll never need to know I was here.” Chris had led them into an office, big and bright and cluttered. The desk was covered in papers. Years ago, when he’d first come back here with Victoria Peter would have tried to coax Chris into fucking him over it—and he probably would have succeeded. 

Peter closed the door behind them.

Chris didn’t look comfortable. It shouldn’t have made Peter feel anything other than a stab of satisfaction. 

“I wasn’t saying you can’t come by, it’s just that—“

“Whatever you meant, it doesn’t matter. I won’t be coming by while she’s home or while she isn’t,” Peter said. The furrow in Chris’ forehead was disappointment. He wished he hadn’t seen it. “You wanted to talk. I thought we might as well get it over with.”

“You think we can get everything we have to say to each other over with in one conversation?” Chris went for whiskey, and Peter knew those motions, too—he would pour for both of them; he might even put wolfsbane in Peter’s. He’d be able to smell it, and choose to drink. It was so often that way, with Chris—he would offer, and expect Peter to take. It saved him from asking.

“No,” Peter said, blunt and easy. There would be little point in lies; even as far as they’d deteriorated, he didn’t have much to hide from Chris. “—but I think if you wanted more conversations you’ve had ample opportunity to start them. You didn’t. I’ve been back since March. It’s been half a year and you’ve had nothing to say.”

“I haven’t said anything. That doesn’t mean I’ve had nothing to say.” Chris put the bottle down, and Peter snuck a glance at it. It was Maker’s; he knew Chris kept better. This was, then, either what he offered hunters, or what he’d been going through himself when he didn’t want Allison to see. “You haven’t said anything, either.”

“The last time we saw each other, I said that you could still change your mind—“

“That wasn’t the last time we saw each other,” Chris said, matter of fact. The glass clunked onto the desk. Without thinking, Peter skimmed the surface for a coaster, digging it out from under a file and slipping it under. Chris opened a drawer, and pulled out a vial of wolfsbane—pale orange, the petals shimmering. He tossed it and Peter snatched it, turning it absently to catch the shine. 

The last time he’d had this with Chris, they’d both been drinking. Allison was 9, asleep at home with Victoria watching her so Chris could go out with an old friend, unnamed. Every time they saw each other, Peter had sworn he wouldn’t do it again, and every time he’d gone. He had felt so high in that hotel room that he’d had the drunken thought that he couldn’t be sure how much was the wolfsbane, and how much was Chris. 

“Planning to take advantage of me, Christopher?” He did his best to tease, but it fell too strained. He was too tired, and there was too much distance between this and the last time they’d talked easily. He could have name a dozen other reasons it wasn’t the same; there was no reason for this particular to stab at him the way he it did, skewer sharp. 

“You know I wouldn’t—I just thought you could use a drink. You don’t have to take it.” If Chris had looked uncomfortable before he sat down at his desk, he looked miserable now. 

Peter opened the vial, crushed the petals between his fingers and dumped them wet and fragrant into his bourbon. “I know. I could use a drink.” The first sip tasted exotic; it always did when it had been awhile. The second was almost sweet—Chris had always grown good wolfsbane, whether he was killing with it or sharing it. 

The silence wasn’t half as uncomfortable as the pinched look at the corners of Chris’ eyes, like it hurt Chris to look at him. He’d looked like that in the hospital, too, but then, it had made more sense. It would have hurt to look at himself, then. 

“Last fall, before I knew it was you but once I realized who was being killed…you know I expected someone to pay me a visit. I was ready for it,” Chris said. His eyes were on his glass, tilted against the edge of the desk. Already, in his nerves he’d drained it low. “I knew someone had a list of the guilty. I started to wonder if maybe they’d even heard what I said to you.”

It wasn’t an easy memory, Chris crying in the dark by his bed in a hospital that smelled like bleach and piss and death. Even when he’d nothing better to do than turn memories over, he’d shied away from it again and again, a rock he didn’t want to lift. 

“You told me you didn’t know it was Kate. If I gutted the ignorant, the victim pool would have been considerably wider.”

“I didn’t know, but I knew she was capable of it. I didn’t want to know it, but I knew that either of them—“ Chris shook his head, rubbing hard the stubble on his cheeks. The scratch of it was a sound so familiar it itched up Peter’s spine. “Deep down, I knew one of them could have done it. I just wanted to believe they hadn’t.”

“Ignorance, with a dash of belligerence. That still isn’t a hanging offense.”

“What about inaction?” Chris asked, his voice soft. 

To bear it, Peter took another drink. A petal slipped into his mouth, and he crushed it in his teeth. 

“You and I both know what I’m guilty of—just say it. You won’t be saying anything to me I haven’t thought of a hundred times. If I had stayed; if I had all those years in-between to build up what I could do, and if I had been with you—“ Chris’ voice choked out; the hurt of hearing it was a powerful shock. 

“You’re right,” Peter said, breathing deep when the confirmation drew Chris’ eyes to him. He would have made an unbearably beautiful wolf. Even his human eyes were piercing. “It’s nothing I haven’t thought of, but I had a lot of time to think about it—I had _years_ to think about it, to go crazy over it, and the more scenarios I considered, you know what I found? If you had stayed, it would have happened one of three ways—“

After another sip, Peter sat his glass down and leaned forward, counting off on his fingers. “Your father could have killed us all for corrupting his son—he’d likely have acted sooner; he’s patient enough for a long game but you’re his crown jewel. He wouldn’t have wanted to wait. I could have watched you burn alive with the rest of my family—or if you managed to put out the fire, I could have watched you die from the effort. I talk to you and I talk to Stiles and it goes in one ear and out the other, but magic has _rules_. Go back—“

“To physics, I know. Conservation of matter; you can’t make something out of nothing, and you can’t take something and shove it into the void.” 

“Fire both is and isn’t natural. It wouldn’t be like funneling water out of condensation or shifting a little earth. The fire would have had to go _somewhere_, and putting out that much fire without any preparation, without any equipment—“

“It would have killed me, and I would have done it. I mean, Jesus, Peter, even without you there, your entire family, the kids—“

“Please don’t.” His voice cracked under the unexpected, sudden pressure. His lungs felt tight like they did sometimes when he dreamed about the smoke, and woke up feeling like he hadn’t woken up at all. 

Chris’ chair scraped against the floor. Peter didn’t look up, and it didn’t matter. Before he could even catch his breath, Chris was there, crouched in front of him, close, but not touching. An offering only. 

The thought of pressing his face into his shoulder and breathing him in was sorely tempting. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, so low only Peter would have heard it. It was clear, and still Peter leaned closer like he needed to. He could feel Chris’ warmth—he always ran so hot, even in the winter. “I’m sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”

“Honestly, it’s not something I blame you for, but if you want me to withhold forgiveness I have a few other points in mind.” 

Chris’ huff was almost a laugh, but he didn’t move back. Neither of them did. 

“What you didn’t do…you have to live with that. For me, I thought about it so many times, and I realized that in my head, without an audience, there was always part of me that was grateful you weren’t there. You were safe, and I couldn’t bring myself to completely regret it—not even with what it cost.” 

The first time he’d felt that realization settle, he’d tried to scream. It hadn’t worked; it never did. 

“I have to live with knowing that about myself, too.”

“Sometimes, that’s all you can do,” Chris said. When he reached out, Peter didn’t stop him. His hand was warm over Peter’s on the arm of the chair, and it was strange all over again like it had been each time they came back together that their hands were almost the same size. In his earliest memories of the two of them, Chris’ had always been bigger—or maybe he’d only perceived them to be. Maybe feeling smaller and safe curled up next to the most dangerous man he knew in the back of his Jeep had everything to do with it. “Survival isn’t a crime either.”

“I know.”

Arguably, still, he needed at least as much therapy as Derek. Neither one of them was ever likely to get it. 

“I should have come to talk to you when you woke up; I can’t take that back—but I knew what would happen if I did. You wouldn’t forgive me, or you would, and—“ His hand squeezed over Peter’s, slow and gentle. 

It was comforting, intimate. It almost made him whine. 

“—and I knew if we started seeing each other again, it’d be different, now. Victoria’s gone; dad’s gone. I knew what I’d want, now, and—“

Peter drew his hand away. It pained him to do it. “Except now, you have to focus on Allison,” Peter said, a coat of snark clinging to it that he hadn’t intended. 

The flash of steel sharpness in Chris’ eyes felt entirely deserved. “Peter—“

Peter shook the warning off. “She needs you; I know. I would never say she didn’t. All I’m saying, is that it’s always something with you. It always will be. If there isn’t a roadblock between us you’ll find one and put it there, and I’ve gotten too old to find hurdles romantic.”

“You’re too old for hurdles, but not a 17 year old kid?”

“Is that really,_ really_ the argument you want to be making to me?” There was a touch of nasty satisfaction in hearing the jolt in his heart, smelling the lick of shame souring his scent. He didn’t regret what they had done and he never had, but it was exactly like he’d said to Stiles that morning—Chris didn’t have a leg to stand on, not on this. 

“I wasn’t old enough to be your father,” Chris said, though the bite was softened, rimmed in guilt. He forgot, sometimes, that Chris had spent the first 14 years of his life a practicing Catholic. Guilt came easily to him, even when he wasn’t entirely sorry, even when the guilt wasn’t his to bear.

This, at least, was something he’d done. 

“No, but I was young enough to believe you, and that was dangerous enough.”

By the scent of him, that one had stuck, and stung. He couldn’t feel too bad for it—he’d felt the same wound for years. 

“I never lied to you. The choices I made—it was never because I didn’t love you. I just couldn’t stay; I couldn’t imagine we’d survive it, and I thought—you had your pack. I thought I’d mostly be hurting myself. I thought you’d be okay.”

Across town, in a house he’d begun to learn like the back of his hand, Stiles was waiting for him in a bed that smelled like the two of them, where Peter had stayed up all night more often than he could count to stay vigilant, and watch him sleep. He might have been napping even then; he might have been curled into the corner with a controller in his hand, wrapped up in the too big San Jose Sharks hoodie Peter had brought him from his trip out of town last month. His scent had faded from it quickly after he’d given it Stiles, but Stiles wore it so often through so much activity that the edges of the sleeves were already beginning to fray.

The thought warmed him, and ached. He didn’t want to be there any longer, but he’d miss Chris as soon as he left. He had hours, yet, before he could be back with Stiles. When he went back home and found Derek, Derek would smell both of them on him, and look at him with a dozen unwanted questions. 

Peter reached for the glass he’d left on the desk and took a long drink, the sugar of the orange wolfsbane tingling at his tongue. “And you were right. I have my pack; I am okay.”

Unlike Stiles, Chris had never been foolproof at knowing when he was full of shit. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading; you guys are the best <3 I 1000% appreciate comments to the depths of my soul and am always excited for them...but I'm also very sensitive and I do this for fun. I desperately want it to stay fun, so please be gentle.


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